Those rulescan beboringandrigid...Rulenumber one of 'TheManifestoofThe Chap' says:THOU SHALT ALWAYS WEAR TWEED. No other fabric says so defiantly: I am a man of panache, savoir-faire and devil-may-care, and I will not be served Continental lager beer under any circumstances.

In shorttickling materials and noHeineken.

What makes dandyism so interesting is the believe tolive according toanidea,aconcept.As inthe above example,the material [Tweed] is themessage.

The dandy isaperson, not agroup. Likesomewhere in2002themetrosexual was invented, with figureheadDavidBeckham.Unfortunately without style,norquirks, well...

Listen togeniusWilde:"The dandyis the future".

The dandy is not onlywell dressedbutalsoa leader inmodern society. In itselfawork of art:impassive,unapproachableand,ifnessesary,inedible.LikeOscar Wilde'sdandyismshowedat the endof the 19thcentury inhis playsandnovels.

According toAliceCiolini's book,"The New EnglishDandy", thedandy"again"has a future.Itis a search forthe successor ofthemetrosexualandthesubsequentübersexual[GeorgeClooney,sic.].Looking for thatnewdandy, she distinguishes; the Neo-Modernist,the TerraceCasual,the CelebrityTailor,the East EndFlaneur,the Gentleman and the NewBriton.An interesting survey...

Posted on 11 July 2012

When was man first freed from the drudgery of earning his income? And who was the first to dedicate himself to the art of living well? At what point in history did an entire leisure class of hedonistic egoists first appear? And what is dandyism after all? It is merely an excessive delight in clothes and fashionable living?

There is a long and colorful history of dandyism. Such men have always appeared, it seems, during eras of luxury and excess, whether during the Days of the Caesars, or the Age of the Virgin Queen. They have gone by many names. During the Restoration of King Charles the Second, they were “bucks” or “beaus” or “exquisites” or, more meanly, “fops.” During the Regency, they were “rakes” and “blades.” Throughout La Belle Epoque, they were “aesthetes” and “dandies.” This last name has become their common name—and a term used as both description and reproach.

The dandy has always inspired mixed feelings among his fellow citizens. According to Baudelaire, the dandy has a “burning need to create for himself a personal originality.” Such characters incite envy or contempt among their fellow man: it is a “burning desire” which strikes others as too ambitious or arrogant. The dandy has always been unmoved by such resentment; the pursuit of “idle perfection” is not done for applause. As Robert de Montesquiou once said (and his indifference to criticism could be called archetypal): “It is better to be hated than to be unknown.”

We will not concern ourselves with dandies who wrote little of consequence –great though they were in their manner of life – such as Alcibiades or Beau Brummell. It is too much off the point to entertain the anecdotes that surround such figures, not to mention their peers such as the Duke of Buckingham, or Ludwig the Second (the Swan King of Bavaria), or the Counts Boni de Castellane or d’Orsay. Examples are too abundant. As one author reminds us: